Drawings
by Juxian Tang
Summary: Harry gets something from Sirius as a keepsake


Title: Drawings  
Author: Juxian Tang  
E-mail:  
Site:  
Pairing: Harry/Snape  
Rating: R  
Summary: Harry gets something as a keepsake  
A/N: Written for Sex Magic challenge for PornishPixies 

DRAWINGS 

It is a notebook, a dark-brown, leather-bound one. It looks like it has seen better times - all puffy with tattered pages, its corners shabby and a circle of a hot cup on the cover. Remus has given it to him right before the beginning of the school year, on their last summer lesson. 

"You should have it, Harry. I think Sirius would want you to." 

But weeks pass before he can touch it without feeling a sharp pain in his chest. Harry knows this pain well - this guilt: that he didn't do everything he could, didn't spend enough time with Sirius; that he could do something else, could prevent it from happening if he were more careful. 

He didn't. He couldn't. 

"It'll help you to get to know him better," Remus said. "And you'll have something to remember him by." 

To remember him by... yes. Only he already has the mirrors that Sirius gave him and Harry never used. 

Only in the middle of September he tries to unbuckle the clasp that locks the notebook. He can't. 

"Hermione." 

She rolls her eyes. 

"I can't believe we attend the same school." 

She applies some spell that Harry hasn't heard before and the buckle opens. 

Perhaps he doesn't have the right to look into it, Harry thinks holding the notebook on his lap, absent-mindedly patting the cover with his thumbs. Perhaps Remus simply gave it to him... to keep? But somehow he hopes it'll help to soothe the dull pain that never leaves him. He didn't... he couldn't... he wasn't near... He's so tired of these thoughts. 

From the flyleaf, among calligraphic signatures "Sirius Black. Mr. Padfoot", Lily looks at him, a small figure with a huge head, her nose wrinkled at a bunch of flowers that a boy in grotesquely big glasses gives her. "Corpses of flowers? How disgusting," Lily says. 

Harry smiles - for the first time in months he lets himself smile about something connected to Sirius - and turns over the pages. The notebook is lined, and the next pages, one after one, are littered with sketches, by pencil and in ink, sometimes hasty, careless, done in a minute or two, sometimes were elaborated, neat. Profiles, cartoons, portraits, scenes... 

Harry didn't know Sirius could draw. 

A small Dumbledore in his half-moon spectacles and with braided beard levitates over a huge cake. Hagrid on the threshold of his hut, looking somewhere afar. Lily again, arms hooked with her friend, both looking quite haughty. When Harry saw his mother in the pensieve, she didn't look haughty at all. But on Sirius' drawing she's exactly like that - Harry wonders how Sirius managed to achieve this impression: maybe it's the way her chin is tilted up or her eyes slightly narrowed... perhaps that's how Sirius saw her, out of sympathy to James? 

Sirius not only could draw. He was talented, Harry thinks. 

On the next page, on a carefully done portrait, there is Remus. A sixteen-year-old Remus seems frail and tired, with shadows under his eyes, and in the fingers intertwined under his chin there is something desperate. But his eyes, the way his face is lit from within - Harry doesn't know how to explain it... it makes him almost beautiful. 

The portrait is so good that it should be put on a wall. Harry wonders if Remus knows about this drawing - maybe he'll want to take it or copy it. He needs something to remember Sirius by as well. 

Whatever Sirius drew - it's clear he was someone of very strong opinions, Harry thinks. And these opinions are exactly what makes the drawings so intense... so alive. James looks ironic and deliberately posing even for smallest sketches. Pettigrew has round cheeks and pointy nose but in his eyes there is something so hilarious, provocative that Harry for the first time understands how they could think him their friend. He was probably very easy to get into any pranks. 

And when Sirius tries hard, the drawings are quite stylish. Harry thinks that now he knows who's made the Marauder's Map - he's never thought about it before. But Sirius of course could do it - would be able to put on paper all the complicated passages of Hogwarts. 

Harry goes through the notebook slowly, as if trying to make it last longer. As if with every turned paged another part of Sirius opens up for him - something about him he didn't know. And now it is the only way to get to know him. 

Harry always thought they'd have enough time, he and Sirius. To live together, as they dreamed, to get to know each other. But Sirius hasn't managed anything of what he dreamed about. Twelve years in prison, and then that awful time of being locked in his house, another prison... 

And now he won't ever be free - because of Harry. 

And he has only this old notebook now. And the moment when everyone falls asleep and behind the drawn curtains of the bed he can open the next page is the highlight of his day. Then Sirius is again with him - as he never could be when he was alive. 

Harry takes the notebook along to the lessons, sometimes touching warm cracked leather, feeling the dent left by a cup. Sometimes he wonders if Sirius also carried it along like that, taking out and grabbing a pencil once something caught his eye. 

When there are only few pages in the notebook left, Harry's fingers meet an obstacle. Something stuck the pages together - something pink and sticky, as if someone dropped a candy on them or smeared with jam. Harry frowns and feels cheated, robbed. After the stuck pages there are only empty ones, he was supposed to see something else, was entitled to it, it's not the end, there must be something else... 

Very carefully, using a light cleansing spell, he unsticks the pages. And can't believe his eyes. 

On the next page, pencil lines are barely visible through the sticky smears but still clear enough to make it impossible to deny what he sees. A teenage boy with black hair stands leaning against the wall, legs are slightly crossed, one narrow ankle over the other, hand covering his groin in a strange brittle gesture. And he has no scrap of clothes on. 

It's a good drawing, wonderfully done, even the light falls in the right way, and a thin angular body is drawn very accurately, one shoulder raised higher than the other, left hand clenched in a fist as if he wants to hit someone or imagines he's holding a wand. 

The boy's head is tilted down - dark strands fall on his face; but Harry thinks he knows him. He has seen him once in a memory of the pensieve, this sharp, contemptuous face with dark gloomy eyes. 

Twice a week these eyes try to burn him to ashes at the Advanced Potions classes. 

Only it can't be. Snape. With no clothes. In his godfather's notebook. 

But another page reveals another drawing, the pose is slightly different, Snape's legs are apart, arm is raised and hiding his face. 

Blood beats in Harry's cheeks, hot so hot, when he turns over the pages with trembling fingers. It's not even sketches - every drawing is made very carefully, soft pencil transfers the play of light and shadows. Snape kneeling, fingers brought to his lips. Snape... and his cock... oh God what is he doing... his hand... yes, he's doing it, no doubt... 

It can't be. Snape. Snivellus, didn't Sirius and James call him like that? What the hell IS HE DOING IN SIRIUS' NOTEBOOK? And doing... himself? 

Sirius had to see it to draw it, right? That is, he drew something he didn't see as well but in another way, as cartoons. And in any case, if he didn't see it - why would he... why would he imagine that? 

And the drawings are too anatomically accurate not to be drawn from life, Harry thinks and goes red. The hollow belly, contours of the ribs, knees moved apart... his expression... 

On the most of the drawings Snivellus' face is hidden behind his hair - untidy, messed up. And through the strands his dark eyes seem focused on something distant - cold and full of hatred. Even at such a moment Snape doesn't look excited - he looks angry and disgusted. 

He knows he's watched, doesn't he? And he doesn't want it? But how... 

A word is scrawled on one of the pages, nearly obscured by the pink stains. "Subiger". 

"Subiger," he asks Hermione once. Her face distorts as if he offered her a toad in a goblet of pumpkin juice. 

"Where did you see this horrible thing, Harry?" she asks. His hand clenches convulsively on the notebook under his robe. 

"Simply tell me what it is. If you know." 

Of course she knows. There is no spell Hermione doesn't know about, apparently. 

"A spell used for forcible claiming of a wizard's debt. Similar in its effects to Imperius but if you can resist Imperius, as you know, you don't have a choice here. It is not Unforgivable because it is conditioned on a special situation - one wizard saving another wizard's life. But it is a nasty spell, Harry, you surely understand it. Everything that takes away a choice from a person should be banned..." she goes on some more about morals and freedom. 

Subiger, Harry repeats, in his bed in the darkness, with only the moonlight falling on the leather-bound notebook. James Potter saved Snape's life when Sirius sent him to the Shrieking Shack to the werewolf. That is why he had the right... to demand anything he wanted. 

But it couldn't be! His father would never... But Harry doesn't particularly believe in it. How can he know what his father would do and wouldn't do? At some moment James has grown up enough for Lily to date him and fall in love with him. But not then, obviously, not yet. 

The enmity between the Marauders and Snivellus must have been cruel. They must have really hated each other. And if Snape had got such a weapon in his hands... 

Very likely it would be James who'd have sat at the wall, his knees apart, his hand squeezing his cock, going up and down, and hatred in his eyes. 

Subiger. Harry hates Snape, hates for five years of unannounced war started against Harry when he was too little to fight back. He hates Snape for everything he did and didn't do. For Sirius dying because of his silence. For Sirius being dead and Snape being alive. For those days while, after looking into the pensieve, Harry doubted Sirius' rightness, dared to think worse about him. 

And sticky lined pages... and a boy sitting on the floor, hair greasy, face hidden against the crook of his elbow... 

Something tells Harry he shouldn't look at these drawings any more. But he looks, again and again. And of course he doesn't do it because it helps him to get to know Sirius better. Neither because he's got another proof that his father could participate in something less than fair. 

And of course it is not the reason why his hand reaches into his pajama pants, under the blanket, so often, no matter how he tries to keep from it. 

He's ashamed and he's angry - angry with everyone: Snape, father, even Remus who gave him this notebook. 

Of course Remus didn't know anything, he would be terrified if Harry told him... and why would Harry tell? What can Remus explain to him? Remus who always gives only half-answers... _Jealous of James' talent on the Quidditch Field... Snape was a special case..._ Harry is already too adult to listen to half-truth. 

He's too adult, and Sirius died because of him, and there are things he wishes he'd never know about. 

Anything can be demanded from the debtor, Hermione said. And there is no way to say "no". 

"Till what limits?" 

"But you know," a surprised look. "Until the debtor saves the life of the... creditor. Or gives his life away." 

What Sirius drew didn't include saving life. 

Shit. 

So complicated. 

Harry takes the notebook and it obediently falls open on those pages, where it was opened so many times. 

This spell... it means James used it... and Sirius drew - he drew everything, didn't he, everything he saw. How much they hated each other... Harry carefully touches the pencil lines faded with time. 

And suddenly he sees something he hasn't noticed till now - because of shock, confusion, shameful excitement. There is no hatred in the drawings. No animosity. The pencil doesn't hate Snape. The hand of the artist doesn't hate him. 

When you hate someone you probably see him in another way. 

It's so clear and simple and Harry can't understand how he could miss it before. There is no hatred in the way Snape's hair fall in a straight curtain over his narrowed eyes. In the sharp elbow of the raised arm hiding the face. In the way Sirius' unwilling model presses to the wall. 

There is no mockery in the drawings. As if Snape isn't sitting on the floor in front of his enemies, doing something absolutely intimate. And shadows fall on his sullen face making it almost sad... vulnerable. 

This is how Sirius sees him - even though he probably doesn't realize it. And when Harry thinks about it, he feels so sad, even sadder than before. 

Poor Sirius. 

Maybe it simply was James' idea, to revenge themselves like that on their biggest enemy. But maybe - maybe, and Harry won't ever find it out - James, in his desire to help his friend, did something Sirius wanted even though maybe never asked for? 

He won't know. He shuts the notebook, promising himself never look into it again. 

But promises are given to be broken. 

"We cannot do without a clown in this class, right? Thank you, Mr. Potter, for entertaining us." 

The man in front of him is not the same man as on the drawings. He's older, harsher, black eyes are even more irreconcilable - and he doesn't have that vulnerability in him that Sirius could catch in his drawings. And he is seen only by Harry's eyes, not by the pencil that could reveal the secrets of the artist, even the secrets never admitted. 

Sirius must have believed till the end of his life that he hated Snape. And Snape was sure that Sirius hated him. And hated him back. 

And Harry also - also participates in this silly game, not willing to admit that his nightly fantasies under the hand sliding up and down his cock consist almost entirely of the flashing images from the lined pages. 

It is Snape. And he hates him. He would be mad to think about him like that... to want to... 

"Zero, Potter. It adequately conveys what you really are." 

Blood rushes into his cheeks and his lips go numb. Harry presses them so hard because there is a word he can say and then... 

Subiger. Snape's debt to James passed over to him. Snape tried to return it when saving Harry's life during the first year. But it was Hermione who pushed Quirrel so the debt wasn't repaid, right? 

Subiger. He can whisper it and Snape will have to give him an "A", will call him "sir", will give Gryffindor ten thousand points... 

Only it is not what Harry wants. 

He imagines how his lips move, not to say that word but to answer Snape, insult him, tell him everything he thinks about him. And... 

"Detention, Potter. Tonight." 

And then, in the evening, in the very room where Harry so many times flopped onto his knees in humiliation and Snape lanced through his mind - he'll say that. 

And what then? There will be disbelief in Snape's eyes, and shock, and hatred - black eyes on the face even paler than usual, and white compressed lips... and what will Harry order him? What does he want? 

He wants - it is a very definite, undeniable heat and heaviness in his groin, nothing like vague admiration he felt to Cho. How stupid... It's Snape... Besides, he isn't as he was on the drawings at all, when he was the same age as Harry, when Sirius looked at him. 

But something in his eyes, in the way he bites his lip, his hair falls onto his face when he turns his head - something in him stays the same. And this something doesn't leave Harry alone. 

His fantasies repeat themselves, and at the same time he seems to be unable to finish any of them. At the moments when Snape insults him, he wants to hurt him, hit, humiliate him. And Harry thinks what a great thing this Subiger is and how it is almost impossible to keep from using it. Let Snape feel everything Harry feels - shame, helpless anger - let him stand in front of Harry, completely defenseless, submitting to anything Harry will order him, everything Harry will want to take. 

Harry looks at his hands, shaking fingers that still feel the contours of thin pencil lines under them. He might... he might touch - not a drawing but... 

He wants it. He doesn't want it. He's probably going mad. 

And the worst of all is that he can't stop thinking that everything could have been different. For Sirius... if not that sodding debt and the spell. Sirius probably wanted something else... but never admitted it. And now it's too late. 

Poor, poor Sirius. He's ruined everything. 

Harry doesn't want to ruin everything. Although there is nothing to ruin and he's probably simply a fool. 

He hopes that it'll get better, it'll pass and he will be able to look at Snape without thinking about pencil drawings in the notebook of his godfather. But if it doesn't pass... then he'll do everything in another way. 

So far he opens the clasp on the notebook, finds an empty page following the drawings and takes a quill. 

_"Undress," I tell him. And his robe falls on the floor."_

THE END 

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